


Take Me With You (Always)

by Oblivion_Wanderer



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Forsaken spoilers, Gen, only at the end but still, spoilers for D2: Forsaken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 19:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15892848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oblivion_Wanderer/pseuds/Oblivion_Wanderer
Summary: She is his Ghost. He is her Guardian.She'd follow him anywhere. He was worth it.





	Take Me With You (Always)

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR DESTINY 2: FORSAKEN  
> .  
> ..  
> ...
> 
> So, I was planning on writing something on Cayde and his Ghost beforehand, but after seeing how exactly his Ghost dies (and also the name of said Ghost being revealed as "Sundance"), it just made this more sad.

“ _The Fallen are worse than the Cayde-6.”_

“ _Oh, he’s okay.”_

“ _ **How exactly?** ”_

“ _Um...! Look, his Ghost loves him!”_

 

* * *

 

The cliff they were on offered a beautiful view of Jupiter; the cloudy, stormy lines that circled the large planet seemed to compliment the half terraformed landscape of Io, or at least Sundance thought so. While her Guardian was currently busy setting up a cache, as he liked to do while they were out exploring, Sundance had decided to admire the scenery in the meantime. She didn’t know why her Guardian thought hiding a cache on a cliff was a good idea, but the view almost made it worth it.

“Enjoying the view, buddy?”

Sundance turns from Jupiter and to Cayde, her back points rotating as she does so. “Maybe. You were hiding that new cache so I decided to see the sights. It’s rather beautiful. Also, why a cliff?”

The Exo chuckles. “Why not?”

Sundance flew over to him; her wonderful, and sometimes foolish, Guardian. “You really think all these caches you decide to hide in any random places will be useful one of these days?”

“You never know when they’ll come in handy.” Cayde replied with a shrug. “Plus, some of them have good stories.”

She would have smiled at him if she could. She could tell he liked being out in the wilds, like any other Hunter, when he wasn’t stuck in the Tower. That was why he tried to sneak away sometimes. She didn’t blame him for it- no, she understood- but she sometimes wished he wouldn’t complain about his job so. Whenever they were out exploring though- well, some of those adventures she wouldn’t forget.

Cayde suddenly yawned, prompting Sundance to ask, “Are you tired?”

“Hm? What, me? Nah, it’s just- look, climbing up here wore me out.”

“Sure it did.”

He poked her shell, to which she beeped in annoyance at him. He mostly did that to tease her, but she had grown used to it. He always meant it as a playful gesture.

Cayde then sat down in the ground, looking out toward Jupiter like she had been earlier. Sundance floated down to him.

“You’re right about one thing.” Cayde said. “It’s one hell of a view.”

“It is.” Sundance commented. “How about we stay here for a bit? We might as well enjoy it since we’re already here.”

“The cache is already hidden, so I don’t see why not.”

He held out his hand for her, and she flew over to rest in his open palm. As Cayde began to retell one of their adventures, Sundance continued to stare out onto the landscape of Io, and Jupiter slowly moving on the horizon. For now they could take a break from their exploring, though they would need to return to the City eventually. She knew Cayde liked these little adventures, and she would gladly accompany him. They’d been together for years, decades, centuries even.

Sundance would follow her Guardian anywhere.

Still, she could tell Cayde was tired from climbing and running about, and he fell asleep in the middle of his story. With him out, Sundance powered down for a bit of rest herself.

 

* * *

 

A shock of something runs through her, like something snapped, and she wakes up.

Sundance doesn’t see Jupiter on the horizon anymore, but she knows she’s in the same place on the cliff. She starts to levitate off the ground, but doesn’t see Cayde anywhere around her.

“Cayde?” She calls nervously, anxious as to where he’s gone to. He couldn’t have gone far, and he wouldn’t leave without her…

She tries to sense where he is, and she detects something faint. She ends up following this over the ledge of the cliff and-

“Cayde!” She exclaims, seeing that he lay down at the foot of the cliff, several feet below her.

She’s to him in an instant, zooming down to the foot of the cliff. Her first observation is that he’s definitely dead; his body broken on the ground. She detects no signs of injury from possible enemies, meaning he didn’t die via combat. The last thing she remembered was going to “sleep” next to him, and-

Oh. He must have rolled off the cliff in his sleep.

Sundance sighs. “You idiot.”

She gets to work on reviving him; healing the broken bits and piecing him back together. At last, she sees the blue lights come back to his eyes.

“Have a nice sleep?” She sarcastically asks.

Cayde groans and sits up, flipping his hood back over his head and then holding a hand there. “Damn, I feel sore. What happened?”

“You fell off the cliff in your sleep and I had to revive you.”

“Oh.” He looks up to where they had been before. “From all the way up there?”

“Yes.”

“Uh… oops.”

Sundance circles his head. “You’re a handful sometimes, you know that?”

Cayde follows her motions. “Yeah, but you love me.”

“You’re my Guardian; you know my answer.”

He stood and dusted off his armor and cloak. “Thanks, my little girl. My charming Sundance. I can always count on you.”

 

* * *

 

“Wait, so he really did fall off a cliff?”

“Rolled right off the ledge in his sleep.” Sundance laughed. “Just as bad as your Guardian driving her sparrow into a ravine.”

“Wow.” The other Ghost commented.

“See? You’re not alone in the ‘stupid deaths’ club. Many Ghosts have stories of their Guardians having at least one death like that. It’s quite normal.”

The other Ghost, who belonged to a new Awoken Guardian and was recently christened ‘Ivo’, gave a sigh. He’d come to Sundance for advice while his Guardian was giving a report on her last mission to Cayde. While he was so glad to have finally found his Guardian, he still had anxious thoughts lingering; at least that’s what Sundance gathered. She understood these thoughts, as she had with Cayde at first. Ivo telling her about his Guardian’s first official death after resurrection is what had prompted Sundance to share her own similar story.

“Look, I understand if you have doubts-”

“They’re not so much as doubts as they are… well… worry.” Ivo interrupted.

“Still, I think you too will be fine. It just takes a while. Me and Cayde? He was a bit of a handful at first, and trust me, I had the same worry as you, but he turned out fine.”

Ivo turned toward where Cayde was talking with his Guardian. “Even with the kind of Guardian he is?”

Sundance mused on this thought for a moment. “He can be reckless, but he’s worth it. I wouldn’t want any other Guardian.”

 

* * *

 

She could hear him talking, and yet she couldn’t find her voice yet. Losing the Light seemed to have stolen her voice for the time being as well. Maybe she was in shock.

"Three more blocks and we're in business. You sure you can still access the terminals?"

Of course she could. Her Light may be gone, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help him find a way out of this; to keep him alive.

She wanted to say this, but couldn’t yet.

"You're right, I shouldn't doubt you. Just because we haven't touched the Light in nine hours doesn't mean that you can't still, you know, do your thing with the beam.”

She tried to restart her vocal patterns to answer him, because of course she could still heal him, just not resurrect. She would do anything to keep him alive in the meantime. 

Anything for her Guardian.

“But you're my last hope, little buddy. Zavala's gonna take years to build up his big space fleet. Ikora's gonna sit and stare at a Traveler-shaped hole in the ground for just as long. It's up to us now. You with me?"

Yes. A million times yes. If they were to die now, at least they’d be together; walking into the dark.

And for the first time in nine hours, Sundance’s vocal patterns rebooted finally and she spoke.

“Always.”

 

* * *

 

He was hurt. Oh Traveler, he was hurt so bad.

They hit his face against something and fractured him. They’d struck him down while he was glowing brightly with flame, taking advantage of that to further damage him. Of course it still didn’t end well for those who dare hurt him, but Sundance still felt his pain.

“You help me out here, little buddy?”

Yes. Always.

And she materialized and turned toward Cayde-

And the last thing Sundance saw was his battered face before the Rifleman’s shot hit her, piercing her core, before the world exploded into Light.

**Author's Note:**

> Cayde's lines where he is talking to Sundance after the fall of the City is taken from a lore bit on one of the Solstice armor pieces for the Hunter set.
> 
> On one of the Io treasure maps, it mentions Cayde fell asleep on top of a cliff and then apparently rolled off said cliff in his sleep and woke to Sundance ressurecting him, so that's where that bit comes from.
> 
> The lines of dialogue at the beginning are a brief exchange between Ghost and Failsafe from the Strike Mission "Exodus Crash".


End file.
